


but you're quicksand

by cxyst



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxyst/pseuds/cxyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[the one where louis is a just-out-of-college music teacher and harry is a senior who can’t stay out of trouble and it should be really really wrong but somehow it’s right]</p>
            </blockquote>





	but you're quicksand

1\. the 'i'll be a good boy'

harry’s done a lot of reckless things. it was really about time he got to trying to seduce a teacher. he has found teachers hot more than he would care to admit, actually, but he's never given the actual idea much thought. 

then he walks past the music rooms before school and sees the new teacher - sitting on a desk with his legs dangling, slim shoulders slouched over a notebook, fringe falling over his pretty eyes and jaw line sharp against the collar of his button-up - and somehow that becomes his plan. (‘somehow’ meaning that that night harry has a dream about wrecking the guy on the head teacher’s desk and wakes up like he’s twelve again, covered in sticky sheets. he resolves that he can’t just leave it after that. and harry has always liked a challenge.)

 

the next day he gets called into the head for smoking on school grounds, and he should probably be paying attention to the serve he’s getting, but ‘it’s the third time this week, harry, you need to pull up your socks, you have so much potential’ goes in one ear and out the other when all harry can think about is the way he had pressed the music teacher down into that hardwood desk the night before. he decides that things are probably out of control already. 

this happens often, with harry. he’s an impulsive person, passionate, and used to charming people into giving him what he wants. so he charms his way out of the head’s office once again, with a wide-eyed smile and an ‘i’ll try harder sir, i swear,’ and starts to make proper plans for getting his hands on this teacher as he makes his way to lunch. 

he barely notices the way people part in the hallways for him. that started a while ago; maybe when he roared into the student carpark on his new motorbike (a consolation present from his father for ditching the family) and came millimetres from taking out the entire football team, or maybe when said football team convinced him it would be a great idea to spray paint a cock on the hood of an english teacher’s car, or it could have been at his third or his fourth suspension. he doesn’t keep track of much anymore. not his suspensions, not schoolwork, not the amount of girls (and boys) swooning over him at school. honestly, all it takes these days is a quiff and a shitty attitude and you're the campus heartthrob. 

when harry finally gets to lunch, he asks niall whether he knows anything about the new teacher, because he is the only person he knows who actually takes music, and because niall is often useful for knowing things. niall says, ‘name’s tomlinson, just out of college, started last week.’

harry speaks through his mouthful. ‘gay?’

‘definitely.’ after a moment, niall fixes him with a knowing eye. ‘what are you up to?’

‘nothing!’ harry shrugs, grins. ‘just think he’s fit, is all.’

niall puts on a deep, stern voice. ‘now, don’t go breaking any rules, harry.’

they manage to keep straight faces for about three seconds before they’re snorting out their lunches. (because when has harry ever taken notice of rules.)

when the bell goes, harry ditches english to walk niall to the music rooms. niall says his class is just working on their final compositions, so harry should be able to hang around without getting in trouble. not that that would stop him anyway. he slouches against the doorway and chats to niall as niall tunes his guitar. with one hand, harry tugs his tie loose and undoes the top two buttons on his rumpled white school shirt. he shoots glances through his eyelashes at the pretty teacher at the front of the room, who eyes him warily. 

‘do you have a class to get to?’ mr tomlinson finally asks, taking a step towards harry. 

harry smiles with one side of his mouth and loosens his tie a fraction more. ‘no sir. free period.’ his eyes flick up and down and he bites his lip. it’s less subtle than a brick to the face. it’s harry.

niall snorts loudly, then tries to turn it into a cough. 

the teacher flushes under harry’s gaze. ‘well, i don’t mind if you stay, but try not to distract anyone.’

he smirks again. ‘no problem, sir. i’ll be a good boy.’ if he flutters his eyelashes a bit, nobody has to know. 

harry folds his long limbs into a chair, smiling at the way the teacher swallows hard before returning to his desk. he starts pretending to sort through papers, cheeks still pink, fringe soft.

niall waits with raised eyebrows. ‘you done staring yet, mate?’ he asks.

harry rolls his eyes and looks back at him. ‘done laughing at my flirting techniques?’

‘never,’ niall grins. ‘that act gets better every time i see it.’

‘laugh now, nialler,’ harry winks. ‘but i bet i’ll have mr tomlinson,' he emphasises the name in a low, rough voice, ‘bent over his desk within a week.’

niall scoffs. harry takes it as a challenge. 

2\. the youtube covers

that night, harry is lying in bed, resolutely ignoring his homework. his mother and her friends are loud downstairs, squawking and giggling and clinking wine glasses. no matter how many times he adjusts the volume, the music from his dock can’t ever fully drown them out. he’s listening to youtube covers, a playlist full of them that he will never let anyone at school know he has, and he lets himself sing along to boyce avenue for a while before he can’t stand the growling of his stomach anymore and sits up. the marble floor is fucking cold under his toes, so he swings past the laundry to dig out the first pair of socks he can find, then skids and slides the rest of the way down the hall. he runs into gemma on the way down the main staircase, who is returning to her room with her own loot of food. 

‘watch out for lynne,’ she warns. ‘she gets cuddly when she’s had one too many.’

harry laughs, the way he never would outside home, and calls out, ‘thanks,’ socks slipping a little on the last stair.

he makes it out of the kitchen with only two lipstick marks on his face, which is pretty good considering the amount of drunk, sexually frustrated, middle-aged women that had been congregated between him and the fridge. harry heads back upstairs with a heaped plate of spare finger food, kicking gemma’s door on the way past to piss her off. 

this is how they do it, most nights. staying locked away in their rooms for hours, only emerging for food and occasionally to reconnect the internet. while harry and gem are happy in solitude - him listening to music and singing, her doing school work - their mother is wildly sociable. she can’t seem to handle being alone for any length of time, and harry would rather not think about the psychology behind why. he doesn’t miss the off-hand jokes about single life, the too-young men traipsing in and out of the house at ridiculous hours of the morning, the empty wine bottles that pile in the recycling bin. harry’s dad left last year, and it’s not hard to see that she is lonely. still, it’s not like harry can do anything about it; he prefers to stay hidden away. he knows gem feels the same way, though they haven’t really talked about it. it’s nothing to do with them. they see dad on the weekends. he was always working before, so it’s not all that different. harry’s fine with it, he is. 

harry flops down on his bed again, rubbing his feet against the duvet to ward off the chill that seeped through his socks on the walk. he checks his phone and sees no texts. that’s fine too. he doesn’t want to be bothered. the only person that would text him is niall anyway, and harry already knows that he has plans. harry almost laughs. people at his school probably think he spends his nights at crazy parties, getting drunk and smoking dope and smashing shit up. he has the reputation as a ‘bad boy’, but really, the trouble finds him. ever since he was little he has been the type to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. the difference is that the dark curls and big, green eyes stopped getting him out of things when he turned fifteen. by that time, it was already a thing for him, breaking rules. when people expect you to act up, it gets easier to do it automatically. it’s not like anyone gives a fuck if he passes high school.

harry falls asleep on top of his covers wearing his sister's socks - curls unruly, crumbs scattered around him - to the continuing noises of the party downstairs and tyler ward crooning, ‘i will try to fix you.’

 

3\. the one with the broken heart

louis is eating ice cream out of the tub, just because it feels like a very rom-com thing to do when he's sobbing in front of 'love actually'. he's doing that thing where he's relating every single scene and line of dialogue to his own break-up, so that just when he thinks he is done crying, he starts up again. it’s not a new thing, this way of spending a night, which is depressing in its own right. 

when the movie finishes, he staggers to the freezer to put away the sweating ice cream, then drags himself to his desk. he’s meant to have three seventh grade lessons planned for tomorrow, and he hasn’t started, which is also not a new thing. he is so out of it that he almost texts liam with a complaint about his workload, before he realises that he can’t do that anymore. that sets off another wave of sobbing, which eventually leads him to falling asleep on his folded arms, eyes stinging, chest heaving and muscles aching.

 

the next day, that fucking styles kid is hanging around again, and louis really does not have the strength to face that smirk today. it was hard enough to handle the day before, when he was closer to emotionally stable. 

‘morning, mr tomlinson,’ he drawls, and, that absolute brat, bites his lip. 

louis just nods in response and looks back down at his work, trying to remember exactly what he’d been doing. instead, he finds himself staring at a row of quavers and wondering why the hell this kid seems so interested. he’s heard things about him, of course; older teachers in his department had warned him about the ‘troublemaker, harry styles. always up to something’. louis assumes that the flirting is some kind of running joke, a challenge. a way to make the new guy uncomfortable, maybe. but two days in a row is going a bit far; surely he had gotten his laughs already. louis is tempted to kick him out, but if this is some kind of test, he is determined to prove that the students can’t get to him. 

so louis checks worksheets and supervises his seniors’ composing and he pretends that he is taking the high road. he pretends that he doesn’t sneak glances at harry across the classroom every day and he pretends that he is not, not turned on by the way harry wears the school uniform undone so the cut of his collarbones is visible and louis doesn’t, does not freeze completely when he hears harry start singing along to niall’s rich guitar chords in a low, husky voice. louis pretends that he isn’t considering cornering harry after class and letting him ravage him in the storage closet because he really hasn’t rebounded from liam yet and maybe he needs something like this, something quick and easy and meaningless to make him feel wanted again, and it would really be simple to give in and just let harry win. but he isn’t considering it, he isn’t. 

needless to say, louis does not have the strength to deal with this today.

later, in the staffroom, louis makes himself a coffee rather than his usual tea, praying that it will sober him up enough to deal with the ninth graders he has next period. his mind is kind of a mess, and somehow he has this picture in his head of liam and harry as two cartoonish opposites. liam with his ironed t-shirts and crinkle-eyed grin, clean-shaven and strong and earnest. harry with his dark curls and dishevelled uniform and sideways smirk, his reputation that screams danger danger danger. and louis is heartbroken, he isn’t ready for this. he tries not to start crying into his mug and yeah, the coffee is really not helping him here. 

 

4\. the ‘baby it’s cold outside’

the next week, it rains. the windows are perpetually greyed-out, and harry forgets what silence is in the constant white noise of water drumming on the roof. he likes it, and not just because it gives him an excuse to come to the music rooms at lunchtimes.

on monday, it’s only him and niall in the classroom, with mr tomlinson at his desk. harry actually tries to stay quiet, because niall has a fair bit to do on his composition and harry isn’t a complete shit head. so he sits with one headphone in and stares at his latest history assignment, trying to decide if he can be fucked to make an effort with this one. after five minutes he decides he can’t, and sits back in his chair to watch mr tomlinson instead. he is hunched over, marking things again, and his blue eyes are tired. he is somehow even prettier like this, looking a bit overwhelmed, and harry kind of wants to rub the knots out of his shoulders rather than fuck him into oblivion, which is definitely a new thing. 

the teacher looks up and catches his eye. normally he would flush pink, and narrow his eyes warningly, but today he just gives harry a soft smile. harry, being harry, takes this as a sign that he could possibly get away with something more than just staring today. so he unfolds his limbs from the piano stool he is sitting on and walks over to mr tomlinson’s desk.

‘do you need help with anything, sir?’

‘uh,’ he freezes, blinking quickly. ‘yes, actually.’

harry smiles, ‘i finished my work,’ and pulls a chair up to the side of his desk. ‘what can i do, mr tomlinson?’

the teacher lets out a long breath. ‘call me louis. can you sort out those books into piles by year, please? they’re all mixed up.’

‘on it,’ harry grins wider, ‘louis.’

louis just shakes his head, hiding his own smile in his collar as he picks up his pen again.

later, niall cackles loudly as he recounts louis' light, breathy voice. 'call me louis,' he simpers, cocking a wrist. 

harry scowls and punches him hard in the shoulder and tells him to shut his fucking mouth before someone else shuts it for him. niall just laughs harder.

 

on tuesday, harry doesn’t bother staring at his assignment or bothering niall. he heads straight to louis’ desk. louis blinks up through his fringe for a second, before his lips twitch and he pushes a pile of worksheets towards harry. they work without speaking, half-listening to niall's lilting guitar on the other side of the classroom. 

wednesday is the same. after a little while of quiet, harry sits back in his chair and says softly, ‘so, are you married?’

louis looks taken aback for a second. ‘uh, no. i’m only twenty.’

‘got a girlfriend, then?’

‘no,’ louis says, not raising his eyes from the papers in front of him. 

harry stretches his arms above his head, pretending not to notice the way louis follows the movement out of the corner of his eye. there is a pause, as harry waits for louis to elaborate. he doesn’t. 

‘boyfriend?’

louis lets out a long breath, shoulders slumping minutely. finally, he lifts his head and looks straight at harry. ‘no.’ 

harry nods slowly. he watches as louis blinks quickly and looks down again. ‘sorry, i-’ harry follows the line louis’ thumb and forefinger trace along his brow before he pinches the bridge of his nose. 

‘are you okay?’ harry asks gently, looking at louis through his eyelashes. 

‘fine.’

‘do you want to, uh, talk about it?’ he whispers.

‘no.’

‘louis-’

‘that’s mr. tomlinson to you,’ louis snaps. slamming his binder shut, he stands up. ‘don’t you have somewhere to be? as far as i’m aware, music isn’t one of your electives.’

niall is looking over at them now, eyebrows furrowed, fingers frozen on his guitar strings. he watches harry stand up and pick up his school bag, stammering.

‘listen, i didn’t mean-’

‘you too, mr. horan,’ louis cuts harry off, swallowing hard so his voice doesn’t crack. ‘lunchtime is almost over.’

 

harry gives up on attending last period and just goes home. he is cold and wet, and he wants nothing more than to be holed up in the warm music rooms, watching louis’ pretty fringe flop over his eyes as he works. with his motorbike rumbling powerfully underneath him, harry starts seriously considering screaming straight through an intersection and letting himself get taken out by a semi-trailer. he doesn’t though, because he wouldn’t put it past his mother to become a fully-fledged playboy bunny if she lost someone else in her life. and gemma’s annoying, but harry wouldn’t wish the pain of seeing his mother in a fluffy corset on anyone. 

he can’t get the memory of louis’ sharp tone out of his head. he tries to go over their conversation again, figure out exactly what he said to make him so upset. harry thought he’d been making progress, if he was judging by the little smiles and sideways glances louis had been giving him for the past two days. as soon as boyfriends were mentioned, though, he’d clammed up. harry swerves around a pedestrian, too deep in his thoughts to listen to the guy swear loudly at him. is it a bad break-up then? is louis still hung up on an ex? stopped at a traffic light, harry shudders with the chill and pulls his jacket tighter around him to ward off the freezing rain. his chest feels tight. somehow this thing with the music teacher has become less something of lust and more of something else that harry doesn’t have the words to describe. he knows that he’s been pushed away, but he isn’t about to just stop trying. 

 

5\. the quicksand

louis can’t decide if it’s a choice, getting swept away by harry. he is a fucking teacher at the kid’s fucking school. and his heart is fucking broken on top of it all. he doesn’t need this kind of stress in his life, but if something more happens, he doesn’t know if he has the strength to push harry away again. today has hurt him enough; he’s curled up on the couch again, rewatching every sappy movie he has recorded and thinking about the soft, careful way harry asked, ‘do you want to talk about it?’, like he would maybe actually give a fuck. louis’ stomach twists uncomfortably in guilt, and he really just wants to snuggle into harry’s arms. he wishes it was easier to just let someone hold him again, let someone take care of him. he wants to feel wanted. he wants to be able to stop missing liam and move the fuck on. he wants so many things that he’s started to think he might be in too deep already. 

thursday is slow and lonely. niall comes in to work on his composition, but he is by himself, and he avoids louis’ gaze. theoretically, louis should get more work done without the distraction of harry’s goddamn curls, but his mind is rambling and he can’t seem to focus. he starts making a plan to find and talk to harry, to somehow explain.

it turns out that he doesn’t need it. the next day, friday, harry is back to loitering in the doorway of the music room. he talks to niall, keeps his eyes firmly away from louis’ desk, but louis can feel him.

louis hears the sound of his own voice, asking harry too stay, before he can think properly. he watches harry’s face light up in something more than his usual crooked smile, and the knot in his stomach loosens a little. he figures that his planning from the day before shouldn’t go completely to waste, so he starts off his speech as soon as harry is close enough. 

‘i’m sorry i snapped at you. i’m kind of a mess,’ he doesn’t get any further, because harry isn’t looking at him all accusing and hurt, like he expected. he’s half-smiling.

‘do you want to go for coffee tomorrow?’ he asks, and it’s quiet enough that it’s just between them. 

‘yeah,’ louis replies. ‘yeah, okay.’

 

sat in a little cafe in the town’s back pocket, with harry across from him, sipping hot chocolate and peeking through his curls, louis is thinking that this might be okay. 

harry says, ‘i’m kind of a mess too, you know.’

and louis blinks and bites at the corner of his mouth. ‘you are?’

‘i kind of have a reputation.’

louis nods. harry takes a deep breath, continues slowly.

‘i don’t mean to fuck things up, but i always do. i’ve tried trying but it doesn’t work. my dad bought me a motorbike and a college fund like it would replace him, but it hasn’t.’

louis nods again, and reaches his feet out to hook around harry’s ankles. harry had been staring into his cup like he’d never seen hot chocolate before, but when he feels the contact, he looks up and smiles small.

‘what about you?’ he asks. he uses the toe of his shoe to rub the back of louis’ calf, and it shouldn’t feel nice but it does. ‘what’s your mess?’

‘uhm,’ louis swallows hard. ‘i went out with a guy for a year, and then three weeks ago i caught him with someone else. a model, in fact.’

harry makes a sympathetic noise, low in his throat. ‘i bet you’re hotter.’ it’s silly and childish and such a harry thing to say, and louis rolls his eyes but he can’t stop the from grin spreading across his face. ‘sorry i mentioned boyfriends yesterday,’ harry adds.

‘no, no. it’s okay. i mean, it’s still a bit raw, but i’m fine. i didn’t mean to get mad, i just. yeah.’

‘you deserve so much better,’ harry says.

louis marvels at how he can switch from silly, flirty teenager to serious and caring adult so fast. it sets him off balance again, because what the hell is he doing? it feels like his world has been standing still since liam, and now it’s finally started turning again. it’s dizzying, but it’s a relief to know that he’s finally going somewhere.

so when harry reaches over the table and touches louis’ hand, it’s easy to let him link their fingers together. louis can’t help but smile at how tiny he looks palm to palm with him. when he looks up, harry is smiling too.

‘little lou,’ he murmurs, rubbing his thumb across louis’ knuckles. 

‘hey now,’ louis says, just as soft. ‘remind me who’s the teenager?’

harry makes a face. ‘i’d rather not.’

then they’re both laughing, because everything about this is ridiculous. and louis knows it would be smarter to walk away here and now, but harry is quicksand, and louis is well and truly sucked in.


End file.
